Alaska Day. Alaska Day is celebrated in the United States annually on October 18 in honor of the anniversary of the annexation of this territory to the United States in 1867, which until that time belonged to the Russian Empire.
This joyful event for America and controversial for Russia occurred on October 18, 1867 — on this day Alaska was annexed to the United States of America. In Novoarkhangelsk (today this town bears the American name Sitka) a solemn ceremony of transferring the Russian peninsula under the jurisdiction of America took place, since then it has forever become US territory.
The holiday established in the United States in honor of this event was called Alaska Day in United States. This holiday acquired official status in 1917.
Interestingly, the Americans themselves initially considered this deal a failure. «Why do we need an ice-covered peninsula?», — they reasoned. American politicians did not even want to give Alaska statehood and considered the region so poor that they doubted whether it could pay the costs of maintaining its administration.
Everything changed when it turned out that the territory of the peninsula was rich in natural resources. First, gold was found here, after which Alaska was immediately recognized as the 49th state in America. Later, large oil fields were also found. It turned out that the Americans, as they say, broke the bank« by buying the richest territory for little money at that time: for the gold-bearing peninsula, the Russian Empire received a check in the amount of $7.2 million.
The state of Alaska now ranks third among all states in America in terms of income. It is a prosperous territory and its people are proud of their homeland.
Alaska Day is a public holiday here and is celebrated by residents on a grand scale. On this day, solemn ceremonies of national importance and many mass festive events take place.
Despite the fact that almost two centuries have passed since those events, in some settlements of Alaska you can still find Orthodox Russian churches, as well as meet Russian-speaking Americans — descendants of Russians who still lived on land that belonged to Russia.